The Steamship Authority
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The Steamship Authority
The Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority, doing business as The Steamship Authority (''SSA''), is the statutory regulatory body for all ferry operations between mainland Massachusetts and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, as well an operator of ferry services between the mainland and the islands. It is the only ferry operator to carry automobiles to and from the islands. The Authority also operates several freight vessels, thus serving as the main link for shipping any commercial goods that are not transported using the airports on Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. History Early Nantucket service The Steamship Authority's roots trace back to the 1833-established Nantucket Steamboat Company. Demand for regular steamship service between Cape Cod and Nantucket increased following the opening of the Cape Cod Railroad's Hyannisport station in 1854. The same year, the company built a terminal near the rail station and renamed itself the Nantuc ...
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Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The population was 781 at the 2010 census. It is the site of several marine science institutions, including Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Marine Biological Laboratory, the Woodwell Climate Research Center, NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (which started the Woods Hole scientific community in 1871), the Woods Hole Science Aquarium, a USGS coastal and marine geology center, and the home campus of the Sea Education Association. And the headquarter of the Climate Foundation. It is also the site of United States Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England (formerly USCG Group Woods Hole), the Nobska Light lighthouse, and the terminus of the Steamship Authority ferry route between Cape Cod and the island of Martha's Vineyard. History Histor ...
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Island Home (steamboat)
The ''Island Home'' was a sidewheel steamer operating as a ferry serving the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket during the second half of the nineteenth century. Nantucket ferry service ''Island Home'' was built in 1855 in Greenpoint, New York. ''Island Home'' first arrived at Nantucket on September 5, 1855 under the command of Capt. Thomas Brown. It was the first purchase of the new Nantucket and Cape Cod Steamboat Co., which had been formed from the Nantucket Steamboat Co. earlier that year when the new railroad terminus wharf was built in Hyannis, Massachusetts. It was 184 feet long, with a 29'8" beam and measured 536 tons. It initially sailed the waters between Hyannis and Nantucket. Capt. Brown had previously commanded the island ferry steamers ''Eagle's Wing'' and ''Massachusetts''. He was followed by Capt. Nathan Manter (1818–1897), who commanded the ''Island Home'' for thirty years. ''Island Home'' is listed in the ''American Lloyd's Register of American and F ...
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Labor Day
Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States. The three-day weekend it falls on is called Labor Day Weekend. Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labor movements grew, trade unionists proposed that a day be set aside to celebrate labor. "Labor Day" was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, which organized the first parade in New York City. In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty states in the U.S. officially celebrated Labor Day. Canada's Labour Day is also celebrated on the first Monday of September. More than 80 other countries celebrate International Workers' Day on May 1, the ancient European holiday of May ...
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Memorial Day
Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May; from 1868 to 1970 it was observed on May 30. Many people visit cemeteries and memorials on Memorial Day to honor and mourn those who fought and died while serving in the U.S. military. Many volunteers place American flags on the graves of military personnel in national cemeteries. Memorial Day is also considered the unofficial beginning of summer in the United States. The first national observance of Memorial Day occurred on May 30, 1868. Then known as Decoration Day, the holiday was proclaimed by Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic to honor the Union soldiers who had died in the Civil War. This national observance was preceded by many local ones between the end of the Civil War and Logan's declara ...
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Oak Bluffs
Oak Bluffs is a town located on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,341 at the 2020 United States Census. It is one of the island's principal points of arrival for summer tourists, and is noted for its "gingerbread cottages" and other well-preserved mid- to late-nineteenth-century buildings. The town has been a historically important center of African American culture since the eighteenth century. History The first inhabitants of Oak Bluffs were the Wampanoag people, who have lived on Martha's Vineyard (Wampanoag name: Noepe) for approximately 10,000 years. The area that is now Oak Bluffs was called "Ogkeshkuppe," which means "damp/wet thicket or woods." The area was later settled by Europeans in 1642 and was part of Edgartown until 1880, when it was officially incorporated as Cottage City. The town re-incorporated in 1907 as Oak Bluffs, named because the town was the site of an oak grove along the bluffs overlook ...
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Vineyard Haven
Vineyard Haven is a community within the town of Tisbury, Massachusetts on the island of Martha's Vineyard. It is listed as a census-designated place (CDP) by the U.S. Census Bureau with a population of 2,114 as of the 2010 census. The area was called "Nobnocket" by the Wampanoag people and was first referred to by the colonial settlers as "Homes Hole," "Homes" from a Wampanoag term for "old man" and "Hole" meaning a sheltered inlet. By the 19th century, it was more commonly spelled "Holmes Hole" after the descendants of John Holmes (1730–1812) who had settled in the village during the second half of the 18th century. The village officially changed its name to Vineyard Haven in 1871. The name Vineyard Haven technically refers only to one section of the town of Tisbury, but the names are used interchangeably and Vineyard Haven is commonly used as a title for the whole town. Vineyard Haven is the main port of entry to Martha's Vineyard and one of the three main population centers ...
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Gay Head (steamboat)
The ''Gay Head'' was a sidewheel steamer operating as a ferry serving the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket during the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. It was named after the town of Gay Head, Massachusetts, later renamed Aquinnah. Construction The ''Gay Head'' was built in 1891 in Philadelphia for the New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket Steamboat Co. It was 701 tons, 203 feet long, 34 foot beam, a draft of 5½ feet, with encased paddlewheels. The engine was built by Pusey & Jones Co. in Philadelphia.Turner, Harry B. ''The Story of the Island Steamers'' (The Inquirer and Mirror Press, 1910) It was the largest sidewheeler ever operated by the company.Vineyard Gazette Online [Baidu]  


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Sankaty (steamboat)
''Sankaty'' (a.k.a. HMCS ''Sankaty'', a.k.a. ''Charles A. Dunning'') was a propeller-driven steamer that served as a ferry to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts; in Rockland, Maine; Stamford, Connecticut and Oyster Bay, Long Island in the United States from 1911 to 1940. During World War II, the ship was requisitioned by the Royal Canadian Navy for service as a minelayer and maintenance vessel along the Canadian Atlantic coast. Following the war the ship returned to a ferry, working the Wood Islands, Prince Edward Island and Caribou, Nova Scotia route in Canada from 1947 until 1964. While being towed to the breaker's yard, the ship sank off the coast of Nova Scotia on October 27, 1964. Description ''Sankaty'' was designed by Chauncey G. Whiton. The ship was long, a slim vessel with twin propellers and twin smokestacks.''The Dukes County Intelligencer''. Vol. 7, No. 4. May 1966 She had a beam, and at the waterline and drew of water. The ship had a de ...
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Martha's Vineyard (steamboat)
''Martha's Vineyard'' was a sidewheel steamer operating as a ferry serving the island of Martha's Vineyard during the second half of the nineteenth century. Construction and design ''Martha's Vineyard'', a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamboat, was built by Lawrence & Foulks in Williamsburg, New York, in 1871. It was a 515-ton vessel,Banks, Charles E., ''The History of Martha's Vineyard, Mass., Volume I''. (Dukes County Historical Society, 1911) 185 feet long, with a 29' beam. (from June 1961 article) A 1961 ''Vineyard Gazette'' article noted the beauty of the vessel: "The ''Martha's Vineyard''...had decorated paddleboxes that made large, rhythmic and beautiful half-circles on the sides." as well as how exposed it was: " The ''Martha's Vineyard'' at first had no hurricane deck open to passengers, and eventually only a partial one." The same article also adds a quotation from 1871: :"The cabins, saloons, ante-rooms, etc., are comfortable and roomy, and finished in a handsome mann ...
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Nantucket (steamboat)
The ''Nantucket'' was a sidewheel steamer operating as a ferry serving the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket during the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. On the Vineyard it docked at Cottage City (later Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts), Vineyard Haven, and the West Chop Wharf. The ''Nantucket,'' a 629-ton vessel, was built in 1886 in Wilmington, Delaware for service with the New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket Steamboat Co. fleet, later reorganized as the Steamship Authority. According to a 1961 ''Vineyard Gazette'' article, the ''Nantucket'' "had decorated paddleboxes that made large, rhythmic and beautiful half-circles on the sides."Vineyard Gazette Online

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Nobska (steamship)
The Nobska was a steamship that plied the waters of Nantucket Sound as part of The Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority's fleet between 1925 and 1973 as a ferry. She was eventually scrapped in 2006 despite efforts to save her. She was America's last East Coast coastal steamer, had been on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland, and had been considered one of America's 10 most endangered maritime resources by the National Maritime Alliance and National Trust for Historic Preservation. Construction and service Built in 1925 at the Bath Iron Works in Maine, the ''Nobska'' was named after Nobska Point, Woods Hole, on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Two hundred and ten feet long, she had a four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engine and could make 14 knots. She ran many different routes for the Steamship Authority over her decades of service for southeastern Massachusetts, mainly for the Cape and Islands but also including New Bedford. Although lau ...
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New York, New Haven And Hartford Railroad
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of the New York and New Haven Railroad, New York and New Haven and Hartford and New Haven Railroad, Hartford and New Haven railroads, the company had near-total dominance of railroad traffic in Southern New England for the first half of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1890s and accelerating in 1903, New York banker J. P. Morgan sought to monopolize New England transportation by arranging the NH's acquisition of 50 companies, including other railroads and steamship lines, and building a network of electrified trolley lines that provided interurban transportation for all of southern New England. By 1912, the New Haven operated more than of track, with 120,000 employees, and practically monopolized traffic in a wide swath from Boston to New ...
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